The Relationship Apps Reporting Venture is an 18-month investigation. It was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Heart’s AI Accountability Community and the Markup, now part of CalMatters, and co-published with the Guardian and the nineteenth.
When a younger girl in Denver met up with a smiling heart specialist she matched with on the courting app Hinge, she had no method of figuring out that the corporate behind the app had already obtained reviews from two different girls who had accused him of rape.
She met the 34-year-old physician with inexperienced eyes and thinning hair at Highland Faucet & Burger, a sports activities bar in a classy neighborhood. It went effectively sufficient that she accepted an invite to return to his house. As she emerged from his toilet, he handed her a tequila soda.
What transpired over the following 24 hours, based on court docket testimony, reads like each individual’s courting app nightmare.
After sipping the drink, the girl began to lose management. Her reminiscence blurred. She fell to the bottom, and the person began to movie her. He put her in a headlock, kissing her brow; she struggled to free herself however managed to seize her issues and depart. He adopted her out the door, holding her sneakers and making an attempt to power her again inside, however she was capable of name an Uber, vomiting within the automotive on the best way house.
She awoke at house, soaking moist on her toilet ground, the important thing to her home nonetheless in her door. She continued vomiting for hours. When she got here to, she reported the assault to Hinge.
Hinge is one in every of greater than a dozen courting apps owned by Match Group. The $8.5bn world conglomerate additionally owns manufacturers like Tinder (the world’s hottest courting app), OKCupid and Loads of Fish. Match Group controls half of the world’s on-line courting market, operates in 190 international locations and facilitates meetups for hundreds of thousands of individuals.
Match Group’s official security coverage states that when a consumer is reported for assault, “all accounts discovered which can be related to that consumer will probably be banned from our platforms”.
So why, on the evening of 25 January 2023, was Stephen Matthews nonetheless on the app? Simply 4 days earlier than, Match Group had been alerted when one other girl reported him for rape. Slightly greater than per week later, he was reported for rape once more. This time, the survivor went to the police.
None of those girls knew that the corporate had recognized about his violent conduct for years. He was first reported on 28 September 2020. By then, Match Group’s security coverage was already in place.
Even after a police report, it took practically two months for Matthews to be arrested – the one factor that bought him off the apps. No less than 15 girls would ultimately report that Matthews had raped or drugged them. Almost each one in every of them had met him on courting apps run by Match Group.
On 25 October, a Denver choose sentenced Matthews to 158 years to life in jail after a jury convicted him of 35 counts associated to drugging and sexually assaulting eight girls, drugging two girls and assaulting another for a complete of 11 girls. Attorneys for the ladies mentioned a lot of that violence may have been prevented.
“It’s surprising that for years after receiving reviews of sexual assault, Hinge continued to permit Stephen Matthews entry to its platforms and actively facilitated his abuse,” mentioned Laura Wolf, the legal professional representing the girl whose police report led to the arrest. Following greatest practices for reporting on sexual assault, the Relationship Apps Reporting Venture is honoring survivors’ requests for anonymity. Matthews’s legal professional, Douglas Cohen, declined to remark. A letter that the Relationship Apps Reporting Venture despatched on to Matthews in jail went unanswered.
Match Group’s attain is so huge – its mission is “to spark significant connections for each single individual worldwide” – that folks usually tend to meet by way of its apps than out on the bars, at church or by way of buddies.
However Matthews’s case reveals that whilst these apps have made it simpler for individuals to attach with a seemingly infinite pool of potential lovers, they’ve additionally made it simpler for individuals who commit sexual abuse to succeed in a seemingly infinite variety of potential targets.
In 2022, a staff of researchers at Brigham Younger College revealed an evaluation of a whole bunch of sexual assaults in Utah. They discovered that assaults facilitated by courting apps occurred quicker and have been extra violent than when the perpetrator met the sufferer by way of different means. Additionally they discovered that perpetrators who used courting apps have been extra prone to goal susceptible individuals. Virtually 60% of sexual assault survivors self-reported a psychological sickness.
Match Group has recognized since not less than 2016 which customers have been reported for drugging, assaulting or raping their dates, based on inside firm paperwork. Since 2019, Match Group’s central database has recorded each consumer reported for rape and assault throughout its complete suite of apps; by 2022, the system, generally known as Sentinel, was accumulating a whole bunch of troubling incidents each week, firm insiders say.
Match Group promised in 2020 that it will launch what’s generally known as a transparency report – a public doc that might reveal information on hurt occurring on and off its platforms. If the general public have been conscious of the dimensions of rape and assault on Match Group apps, they might have the ability to precisely assess their danger. As of February 2025, the report has not been launched.
As a substitute, as individuals continued to get harm, the corporate dithered over what damning info ought to be hidden. “Will we publish solely the place we’re required by legislation?” reads a slide in a 2021 presentation proven a number of occasions to Match Group staff in addition to to exterior security companions. “Will we push again on how a lot we’re required to disclose, or can we attempt to transcend what’s required?”
No on-line house is risk-free. However whereas Match Group has lengthy possessed the instruments, monetary assets and investigative procedures essential to make it more durable for unhealthy actors to resurface, inside paperwork present the corporate resisted efforts to unfold them throughout its apps, partially as a result of security protocols may stall company progress.
“The obsession with metrics and having to stay with them is irritating and probably harmful,” one worker wrote in 2021 after the corporate realized that the investigative information non-profit ProPublica was planning a narrative. “This isn’t the best way we have been meant to work and folks’s lives are in danger.”
The identical individual requested their superiors: “‘How a lot would you personally pay to cease only one individual being sexually assaulted by a date, one little one being trafficked or one susceptible individual being pushed to suicide by a predator?’ I really feel that if I requested members of our workers that query individually, they might put a excessive worth of their very own cash on it – however as a bunch no one is able to hear that but.”
Since 2021, Match Group has publicly promised to enhance the protection of their merchandise and to share information, however firm insiders say security has not improved. A short hiring spree sparked by congressional and media scrutiny has been largely scaled again, based on former staff. In 2024, the remaining staff from the central trust-and-safety staff Match Group had arrange in response to elevated scrutiny have been let go and their jobs outsourced to abroad contractors. Dealing with stress from Wall Road, Match Group eliminated its CEO, Bernard Kim, in early February 2025 as he struggled to chop prices and finish the regular decline in subscribers to Match Group’s strongest app, Tinder.
Members of Congress have repeatedly requested information from Match Group on sexual hurt. In February 2020, 11 members of Congress wrote to then CEO Shar Dubey asking for particulars on how the corporate responds to reviews of sexual violence. In July 2023, two Democrats, the then consultant Annie Kuster of New Hampshire and the consultant Jan Schakowsky of Illinois adopted up after we inquired on the standing of their efforts. The corporate has nonetheless not supplied the info.
In September 2024, the Home of Representatives handed a invoice that might have required shoppers to be notified if they’d interacted with a consumer on a courting app who had been banned for defrauding shoppers of cash or private monetary info. However the invoice stopped in need of addressing the problem of sexual assault on the apps, and it died within the Senate.
Our evaluate of a whole bunch of pages of inside firm paperwork, together with 1000’s of pages of court docket data, securities filings and analyst reviews, coupled with dozens of interviews with present and former staff and survivors of sexual violence discovered that ladies who report being raped get no traction, whereas accused rapists like Stephen Matthews maintain swiping – and assaulting.
Our personal testing on Match Group apps confirmed that as of February 2025, not a lot had modified. Banned Tinder customers, together with these reported for sexual assault, would simply rejoin or transfer to a different Match Group courting app, all whereas protecting most of their key private info precisely the identical.
The Relationship Apps Reporting Venture despatched Match Group a four-page letter detailing our findings. The corporate responded with a brief assertion. The assertion didn’t dispute that Match Group had fastidiously documented the extent of hurt on firm apps for years with out sharing that info with the general public. It additionally defended the corporate’s efforts to make platforms secure.
“We acknowledge our position in fostering safer communities and selling genuine and respectful connections worldwide,” the assertion supplied by Kayla Whaling, senior director of communications, learn. “We are going to all the time work to spend money on and enhance our programs, and seek for methods to assist our customers keep secure, each on-line and once they join in actual life.”
The corporate mentioned it vigorously combats violence. “We take each report of misconduct severely, and vigilantly take away and block accounts which have violated our guidelines concerning this conduct,” its assertion learn.
Our personal testing discovered in any other case.
Beginning in April 2024, the Relationship Apps Reporting Venture created a collection of Tinder accounts that we subsequently reported for sexual assault. Quickly after, Tinder banned the accounts, and we began investigating how straightforward it will be for a banned consumer to create new accounts.
Repeatedly, we discovered that customers, quickly after being banned, may create new Tinder accounts with the very same title, birthday and profile photographs used on their banned accounts. Customers banned from Tinder have been additionally in a position to join Hinge, OKCupid and Loads of Fish with out altering these private particulars.
To get across the Tinder ban, we used methods generally instructed by on-line guides and boards that don’t require a lot technical data to know. We have been capable of confirm three methods that allowed banned Match Group customers to repeatedly bypass being flagged when creating new accounts.
In its assertion, Match Group solid itself as an trade chief in deploying expertise to advertise security, together with “harassment-preventing AI instruments, ID verification for profiles, and a portal that helps us higher help and talk with legislation enforcement investigating crimes. … Each individual deserves secure and respectful experiences. We’re dedicated to doing the work to make courting safer on our platforms and past.”
28 September 2020 – the date Denver heart specialist Stephen Matthews raped a lady who reported him to Hinge – can also be the date Tracey Breeden was introduced on as Match Group’s head of security and social advocacy.
Breeden was a flashy rent. “With Tracey approaching board, we’re reaffirming our dedication not simply to be security leaders within the courting house, however throughout your entire tech sector,” then CEO Shar Dubey mentioned.
Sporting a trademark black leather-based jacket and quick, slick-backed hair, Breeden had passed by the nickname “Twister” throughout her 15-year profession in legislation enforcement. What made her enticing to Match Group was her most up-to-date job at Uber: she had helped the worldwide ride-hailing firm revive its status after a collection of scandals, from persistent reviews of harassment of feminine staff to allegations that it was ignoring sexual assault that occurred throughout Uber rides.
Breeden spearheaded a security report in 2019 that advised the general public what Uber knew about practically each downside, together with nationwide reviews of intoxicated drivers, site visitors fatalities and incidents of sexual violence. The report turned a key metric of success for the corporate.
In hiring Breeden, Match Group hoped to copy this success throughout its portfolio of apps. “Firms,” she mentioned in a press launch saying her arrival, “have a accountability to assist guarantee secure experiences for his or her customers.”
Breeden’s staff garnered public consideration for his or her new security measures, together with partnerships with NGOs, elective AI-assisted photograph verification and a law-enforcement portal the place police and prosecutors may request information.
She additionally fostered a partnership with Garbo, a startup that provided low-cost background checks. It launched on Tinder in 2022. Specialists level out that background checks aren’t all the time dependable as they pull from outdated databases, and analysis means that most individuals who commit sexual abuse don’t encounter the prison justice system. For instance, Matthews had no prison file.
Throughout this time, Match Group invested $100m in security, the corporate mentioned, and boasted about Breeden’s “central security staff”.
Her staff of veteran security professionals referred to themselves as “the Avengers”, even donning superhero costumes at firm occasions.
However Michael Lawrie referred to as this “security theater”.
Lawrie labored for Match Group for practically a decade, shaping and main a security staff for one of many firm’s smaller manufacturers, OKCupid. Generally working 80-hour weeks, he spent hours, even days, sniffing out savvy customers who tried to thwart bans by creating a number of accounts.
Over a 30-year profession in content material moderation, Lawrie mentioned, he noticed many customers like Stephen Matthews. “You’re coping with one repeat offender. I’ve handled God is aware of what number of repeat offenders,” he mentioned.
A yellow Put up-it observe on the aspect of Lawrie’s work pc had listed out a few of his duties: “Rape flags. … Examine miscreants.”
Nowadays, Lawrie is making an attempt to begin an advocacy group for content material moderators and different frontline security employees. However, he mentioned, he’s achieved with courting apps.
“I don’t suppose they’re secure sufficient in the mean time,” he mentioned. “They’re going to worsen. … I’m hoping courting websites vanish.”
Lawrie mentioned he was initially enthusiastic about Breeden’s rent. He mentioned she spent her first few months on the job speaking to every model’s security staff, and advised him that she was “very impressed” by the work OKCupid was doing.
Leaders from every of Match Group’s greatest apps supplied their self-described strengths and weaknesses to Breeden’s staff, based on an inside spreadsheet. At Hinge, these weaknesses included a “very rudimentary warning system with no focused comms and no observe by way of” and “no solution to discover” the unique profile “of a foul actor who has created a number of profiles”.
Breeden was confronted with an existential downside. “Our present ban classes gained’t permit us to reply the general public’s greatest query: Am I prone to be harmed on my date?” reads a slide in a presentation drafted by her staff in April 2021. Whereas every of Match Group’s apps had a system of reporting and banning violent customers, the data was disorganized, and not one of the apps talked to one another.
Lawrie hoped Breeden would enhance security on the firm. However he rapidly grew annoyed that neither she nor Match Group management listened to his pleas for what they actually wanted to make platforms safer: to rent skilled – and costly – investigators and combine highly effective moderation instruments throughout all of the apps.
OKCupid already had these instruments. Lawrie was utilizing them on daily basis.
A kind of was the Sentinel system, which had been up and working throughout Match Group’s apps for not less than 5 years earlier than Breeden arrived. It labored like this: when a consumer was banned for one thing critical – like sexual assault – a case was created in Sentinel with the cellphone quantity and electronic mail tackle related to their account. In interviews, a number of present and former staff described how these reviews circulated by way of every of Match Group’s apps. The system was designed to ban anybody who used that info. It additionally grabbed the unique profile’s IP addresses, photographs and birthdate.
Such a system appears strong at first look – however not one of the Match Group’s apps required customers to offer photograph identification (the type wanted to purchase alcohol or board an airplane), so as soon as an individual was kicked out, they might simply begin a brand new account with totally different contact info. A fast search yielded scores of on-line boards with clear steps and recommendations for find out how to rejoin the apps. As well as, inside firm paperwork confirmed that info on IP addresses, photographs and birthdate weren’t used to ban a consumer in the event that they appeared on one other Match courting app.
Lawrie’s staff at OKCupid knew Sentinel may solely achieve this a lot.
So his staff deployed different instruments to repair its shortcomings, together with one that would routinely ban a profile that was linked to a cellphone quantity, photograph or URL that had been beforehand banned – even when the consumer made an account with a special electronic mail or IP tackle. This device was designed to be proactive quite than reactive, in order that the profiles of alleged perpetrators like Matthews wouldn’t resurface after they’d been reported.
Inner firm paperwork from 2019 and 2020 present 1000’s of reviews of “critical bodily assault”, abuse and violence on OKCupid that have been deemed critical sufficient to get customers banned from all of Match Group’s apps. That is among the many info the corporate stored from the general public.
Breeden and Match Group management praised Lawrie and his staff at OKCupid, he mentioned, for his or her thorough investigative work and for dealing with among the firm’s most tough circumstances. But, he mentioned, Match Group by no means constructed out a talented, skilled investigative unit at different manufacturers just like the one he headed up at OKCupid. Beneath Breeden’s management, he mentioned, they confronted stress to hurry up investigations and practice outsourced labor to make use of sophisticated moderation instruments.
In 2021, per week after a damning article revealed that content material moderators with little coaching have been requested to quickly cope with violent sexual content material throughout Match Group’s manufacturers, then CEO Dubey despatched out an all-staff electronic mail addressing the controversy. She CC’d Breeden, acknowledging that the model’s security groups weren’t all on equal footing.
As Match Group ready internally for the story to interrupt, Lawrie was requested to put in writing a report for Breeden outlining his staff’s accomplishments “to ensure when Tracey describes and acknowledges what you’re doing individually to have fun the great work that you’re doing”.
Lawrie used that report back to protest.
“Most professionals aren’t judged on what number of circumstances they’ll hurry by way of in an hour,” he wrote. The best way Match Group anticipated its trust-and-safety and help groups to work “principally diminishes their abilities and makes them production-line employees”.
Breeden declined to remark for this story, citing a nondisclosure settlement.
Lawrie left the corporate in 2022 and mentioned most of his small staff that had been ferreting out malicious customers additionally left as a consequence of a unfavorable office atmosphere. He mentioned a lot of their work was outsourced to contractors with little coaching and extreme quotas.
He now cautions anybody utilizing a courting app to know that the apps aren’t within the enterprise of defending customers.
“You’re by yourself just about,” he mentioned.
As Lawrie was getting pushed out of Match Group, Matthews stored showing on the corporate’s apps.
One crisp fall night in 2022, one of many Denver heart specialist’s outdated medical faculty classmates was on Hinge when her cellphone display stuffed up with a well-recognized face.
Matthews was being promoted on the app as a Standout, a well-liked profile that Hinge’s algorithm thinks one other consumer will like. To match with a Standout, customers should ship the individual a rose. They get one free rose per week, however they price $3.99 a pop after that. His classmate didn’t ship Matthews a rose.
By this level, Matthews had already been reported for rape not less than as soon as to Hinge. Court docket paperwork present that he had already allegedly sexually assaulted 9 girls and drugged 10. Not solely did the apps permit him again on, they featured Matthews’s profile.
Because the Covid-19 pandemic dragged on, individuals bought uninterested in forking cash over for courting apps. Match Group nonetheless made a hefty revenue, however its progress flatlined. Its inventory cratered, shedding practically half its worth between October 2021 and April 2022. That month, an analyst from JP Morgan wrote that the agency had obtained extra messages about “the underperformance of MTCH shares in current weeks than some other subject”.
In Could 2022, Match ousted Dubey as CEO and put in Bernard Kim, a former government on the gaming firm Zynga that had popularized viral video games like FarmVille.
Whereas Dubey spoke steadily about belief and security and labored intently with Breeden, Kim hardly talked about security when he started his time at Match Group, as a substitute emphasizing the necessity for continued speedy enlargement to drive long-term shareholder worth.
Lawrie mentioned that Kim, along with his background in gaming quite than courting apps, had little interest in love. “He simply desires to become profitable. He’s simply there to extend earnings,” Lawrie mentioned. “If he’s taking a look at a backside line, then it’s simpler to have a lawsuit than it’s to offer security. I do know which one he’s gonna choose.” Match Group declined to make Kim accessible for an interview. Messages despatched to Kim straight went unreturned.
Whereas the stress between progress and security exists throughout the tech sector, it’s particularly excessive at dating-app firms the place executives have to fret about fixed churn – customers leaving the apps when they’re not in search of dates. Each time Match Group delivers on its promise, it loses clients.
In February 2024, six dating-app customers filed what they hope will probably be licensed as a class-action lawsuit. They argue Match Group makes use of “addictive” options to encourage compulsive use whereas not resulting in any actual improve in off-app relationships. “The app is designed particularly to hook them, and to maintain them paying subscription charges – to not assist them discover love,” legal professional Ryan Clarkson mentioned. Match Group filed to dismiss the lawsuit in September, noting in its quarterly report that it “will defend vigorously” towards the allegations.
Despite Kim’s efforts, Match Group’s inventory worth continued to drop, and through that point, so did any point out of belief and security. In additional than a yr of quarterly investor calls, Kim solely referenced security efforts as soon as.
Workers who pushed for these initiatives have been pressured out or laid off, together with Breeden – a pacesetter who was so satisfied of her personal invincibility that she confirmed as much as an occasion wielding a Captain America protect.
Match Group fired its energy rent in October 2022. Layoffs hit her staff over the following a number of months. In February 2024, the remaining crucial investigators and legislation enforcement liaisons on Breeden’s central security staff have been proven the door.
Lawrie mentioned group chats of former Match Group staff have been gossiping concerning the cutbacks.
“You’re not going to see them taking security severely ever once more,” he mentioned, including that the one factor he thinks would possibly change that’s laws.
4 months earlier than Matthews was arrested, a submit on a Fb group in Denver blew up, proper round Christmas.
Amongst posts warning different girls about probably dangerous males, again and again girls furiously detailed unfavorable experiences they or their buddies had had with Matthews.
Some girls described him as “sketchy”. Others referred to as him “horrible” and “not secure”. A number of girls advised the same, darkish story: that they’d been provided drinks, blacked out and have been sexually assaulted.
The thread reached 150 feedback. Two girls wrote the identical factor: that they’d been ready for somebody to submit concerning the heart specialist.
The flood of Fb feedback mirrored particulars within the police reviews launched the next yr. Almost the entire 16 girls included within the district legal professional’s preliminary complaints had been provided tequila. Eight recalled taking part in Jenga. Six talked about a sizzling tub.
As these tales circulated on this small nook of the web in December 2022, the Denver heart specialist stayed on Match Group apps.
These lucky sufficient to know concerning the Fb group – and who had the foresight to examine for Matthews on it – could be saved from a foul date or worse. However the truth that he may nonetheless log in to Tinder and Hinge left him with a pool of 1000’s of unsuspecting girls whom he may – and would – proceed to match with.
The Relationship Apps Reporting Venture is conscious of 4 extra girls who’ve accused Matthews of drugging and/or raping them who weren’t a part of the prison criticism. Every of those girls met Matthews on a Match Group app throughout a single yr between the summers of 2020 and 2021.
Through the years Matthews was on their apps, Match Group employed and fired Breeden. It made loud guarantees on sexual violence, introduced initiatives and product traces, and promised a transparency report. Nevertheless it was not straight with the general public, which meant the ladies matching with Matthews on Match Group apps weren’t conscious of the chance they confronted.
Match Group’s partnership with Garbo, the background-check firm, additionally fell aside in the summertime of 2023. “It’s change into clear that almost all on-line platforms aren’t legitimately dedicated to belief and security for his or her customers,” Garbo wrote in a searing weblog submit.
After spending a lot vitality speaking about monetization, gamification and progress, Kim started to publicly acknowledge this downside. Talking on the Citibank convention within the fall of 2023, he mentioned the corporate was investing in new options to ensure “girls have a great expertise whereas they’re within the product. They really feel secure. They really feel safe. And so on.”
The “and so on” doesn’t appear to incorporate elevated transparency about security. As a substitute, in Could 2023, Tinder launched a “female-focused bundle”, a curated checklist of “high-quality profiles”. It’s unclear how Tinder determines these high-quality matches. Hinge’s Standout function, which is analogous, had beforehand promoted Matthews.
The truth is, beneath Kim’s management, all mentions of a transparency report disappeared from the corporate’s annual impression report. Mockingly, this was across the identical time that new laws in Europe required tech firms to reveal reviews of “non-consensual conduct” and different points. Match Group will probably be required to submit a transparency report back to the European Union on the scope of hurt on their platforms later this month. Lawmakers in India and Australia are additionally demanding transparency.
That is precisely the scenario Breeden and her staff contemplated three years in the past. “What if publishing in a single jurisdiction sparks a requirement in one other?” learn a slide in the identical inside presentation the place Match Group’s trust-and-safety leaders questioned whether or not they need to “push again on how a lot [they] are required to disclose”.
After Match Group revealed a disappointing earnings report in February 2025 that fell beneath analysts’ expectations, it additionally introduced that Kim would get replaced by the previous Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff. Tinder’s income, gross sales and subscribers had all gone down.
As Match Group struggles to reverse its decline, it’s additionally conscious that its status is within the highlight. Earnings calls and shareholder letters over the primary three quarters of 2024 point out that the corporate is aware of it’s a enterprise crucial to make girls really feel safer on its platforms. Match Group introduced in a brand new vice-president of belief and security whose job partly focuses on complying with elevated world transparency necessities. The corporate is experimenting with requiring faces in photographs and rolled out a “Share My Date” function so that you could be tracked whereas assembly up with a web-based stranger. On Tinder, it orchestrated a “main ecosystem cleanup” geared towards figuring out pretend profiles and getting scammers off the app.
However neither the cleanup nor monitoring a date out of your cellphone would have stopped Matthews – a person who by no means sought to cover his id, who assaulted his dates in his own residence – from discovering and harming girls.
Four years after Matthews’s first documented assault, he walked right into a wood-paneled courtroom in Denver and was sentenced to 158 years to life in jail. “I’ll sentence. I can not heal,” the choose, Eric Johnson, advised the room full of survivors and relations.
“Numerous girls have suffered and can proceed to endure,” mentioned Laura Wolf, an legal professional who represented the girl whose police report triggered Matthews’s arrest. “Hinge and different courting platforms have taken no steps to make sure the protection of the product they’re promoting, matching unsuspecting girls to recognized predators with out pause or concern.”
Match Group didn’t make it straightforward for the Denver prosecutors to convict Matthews. A search warrant was issued for Hinge in July 2023. Two months later, prosecutors have been nonetheless empty-handed – with the choose within the case asking at a listening to whether or not he wanted to begin “dragging individuals in to get stuff achieved”. It wasn’t till February 2024 that the Denver district legal professional’s workplace mentioned they’d lastly obtained paperwork returned by Match Group.
Matthews will possible by no means depart jail. Match Group executives at present face no expenses. However the firm knew about Matthews, and it is aware of about 1000’s of different abusive customers. It has the info that would assist individuals keep away from harmful conditions, however it hasn’t shared it, leaving hundreds of thousands of individuals at midnight.
Lawmakers around the globe are beginning to ask for solutions from essentially the most highly effective power in trendy courting. In June, Colorado handed a legislation, triggered by the Matthews case, that forces dating-app firms to inform the state legal professional basic which security measures they’re taking to guard customers. Though the legislation leaves room for the potential of extra transparency sooner or later, it doesn’t at present require the corporate to inform the state, or the general public, how many individuals are raped or assaulted after utilizing its platform. Within the US, the floor has solely been scratched. In most states, there’s little that requires Match Group to share info with customers – or with Congress.
The truth is that if Stephen Matthews have been launched in the present day, he may get proper again on a courting app. Match Group is aware of this – and now so do you.
Stephanie Wolf contributed reporting. Statistical journalist Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett led the Markup’s testing of Match Group apps.
Methodology: How we examined Match Group’s courting apps
The Markup created greater than 50 accounts throughout Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid and Loads of Fish to check how Match Group treats reviews of sexual assault and whether or not customers banned from Tinder after a reported sexual assault may return to Match Group apps by creating new accounts. We carried out experiments in April and Could of 2024 and once more in January and February of 2025. The outcomes have been related throughout each rounds of testing.
To start out, the Markup examined whether or not and the way rapidly Tinder would ban customers who had been reported for in-person conduct. We discovered that Tinder persistently banned reported customers inside two days of receiving a report.
Subsequent, we examined whether or not a banned Tinder consumer may use their very same primary account info to join different Match Group courting apps: Hinge, OKCupid and Loads of Fish. Hinge and OKCupid prevented us from creating accounts, however Loads of Fish allowed us to create new accounts. Inside 48 hours, the Loads of Fish accounts have been taken down.
Our subsequent checks targeted on figuring out what sort of modifications would permit banned customers to rejoin Tinder or to create new accounts on different Match Group apps. To simulate what a typical consumer would attempt, the Markup utilized on-line guides and boards to determine generally instructed methods to get round a ban from a Match Group app.
We then tried a mix of those recommendations, particularly people who self-identified banned customers claimed to have had success with. Throughout a number of rounds of testing, we discovered a number of methods to efficiently create new Match Group accounts that bypassed the ban. Every technique concerned easy modifications in how we signed up and the data we supplied throughout the course of.
When trying to rejoin or to create a brand new account on one other Match Group app, we used the conventional sign-up processes customers undergo and used the identical cellphone quantity as the unique banned account. Throughout a number of checks, we efficiently created new accounts while not having to alter the consumer’s title, birthday or profile photographs.
The Markup didn’t take a look at any strategies that required vital technical data and utilized solely info that might be simply accessible to somebody who did a cursory search of find out how to get round a ban. For instance, the Markup didn’t take a look at whether or not altering a profile photograph’s metadata may alter the outcomes. The Markup’s take a look at accounts created for these experiments purposefully didn’t like, match with or message any actual Match Group customers. Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett
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